Delhi High Court allows seminar on fascism, but with a condition

The Delhi High Court on Saturday struck down Delhi police order refusing a seminar on the theme of "Understanding Fascism in present India Context", Justice Tushar Rao Gadela asked both police and organisers to co-operate for a peaceful seminar.

However, he also asked the seminar’s organisers to furnish personal details of the 10 speakers and other invitees (addresses, identity cards etc.) to the Delhi police before the event is held.

2-day seminar from March 12

The 2-day national seminar organised by Bharat Bachao, a collective of scholars, social activists, advocates and politicians, will now be held in the Harkishan Singh Surjeet Bhawan here from March 12.

The petitioners, Gade Inna Reddy and Dr Mondry Francis Gopinath, who represented the collective, had challenged the Delhi police’s March 9 order. In their plea, they argued that the details of the event were shared with the police more than a month ago, on January 24, but the police kept them hanging and finally denied permission only two days ago.

They also said that similar seminars have been held at multiple locations, including one on February 5 in Rajasthan, and no untoward incident had happened as was feared by the Delhi police.

Why Delhi Police is against the seminar

The petitioners said that the seminar will be attended by eminent speakers who will “voice their opinions about issues pertaining to the society at large”.

The Delhi police argued that the information provided in the petition was not available to them, and that prompted them to deny permission to the event in view of apprehension of some kind of “mishappening”.

Dismissing the police’s plea, Justice Gadela said, “The petitioner assures and undertakes that there shall be no cause of any untoward incident so far as the Organising Committee and participants are concerned.”